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The “Saying Is Repeating” Effect: Dyadic Communication Can Generate Cultural Stereotypes a

Boyka Bratanova & Yoshi Kashima

a

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The University of Melbourne Accepted author version posted online: 17 Dec 2013.Published online: 11 Feb 2014.

To cite this article: Boyka Bratanova & Yoshi Kashima (2014) The “Saying Is Repeating” Effect: Dyadic Communication Can Generate Cultural Stereotypes, The Journal of Social Psychology, 154:2, 155-174, DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2013.874326 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2013.874326

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 154: 155–174, 2014 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0022-4545 print / 1940-1183 online DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2013.874326

The “Saying Is Repeating” Effect: Dyadic Communication Can Generate Cultural Stereotypes

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BOYKA BRATANOVA YOSHI KASHIMA The University of Melbourne

ABSTRACT. It has been long established that interpersonal communication underpins the existence of cultural stereotypes. However, research has either examined the formation of new or the maintenance of existing stereotypes. In a series of three studies, the present research bridges the gap between these phases by showing that newly formed stereotypes can spread through repeated dyadic communication with others. The stereotypic representation arose due to the audience tuning in to communication to a first audience. Further transmission to two types of subsequent audiences was simulated: a newcomer and an old-timer with an unknown attitude towards the target. A “saying-is-repeating” effect was obtained: the stereotypic representation was invariably transmitted to the newcomer, regardless of whether communicators personally believed in the bias; perceived group-level consensus moderated its transmission to the old-timer. These findings demonstrate that once a stereotypic representation is formed, it is likely to spread in a community and potentially become a cultural stereotype. Keywords: audience tuning, culture, interpersonal communication, shared reality, stereotype

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION IS A CENTRAL mechanism underpinning the existence of cultural representations (e.g., Kashima, 2000). A wealth of knowledge about the role of interpersonal communication in creating and sustaining cultural representations has been obtained from research on stereotype communication (for reviews see Kashima, Klein, & Clark, 2007; Lyons, Clark, Kashima, & Kruz, 2008). Stereotypes, as representations that are learnt and transmitted socially, shared in a community, and relatively stable over time, constitute a prototypical example of cultural representations (Lyons & Kashima, 2001, 2003). Studying stereotype communication, therefore, has been and can be informative of the phases and trajectories through which representations travel and develop to become part of culture. To illustrate, previous research has revealed that interpersonal communication plays a role in two key phases of stereotype development: stereotype formation and stereotype maintenance. A large and diverse body of research has shown that people tend to form biased shared representations in their interpersonal communication (see Klein, Tindale, & Brauer, 2008 for a Address correspondence to Boyka Bratanova, The University of Melbourne, School of Psychological Sciences, Redmond Barry Building, Parkville, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]

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review). This has been demonstrated in small group discussions (e.g., Davis, 1982; Harasty, 1997; Kameda, Tindale, & Davis, 2003), dyadic conversations (Klein, Clark, & Lyons, 2010; Ruscher, Santuzzi, & Hammer, 2003; see Ruscher, 1998 for a review), and referential communication tasks (e.g., Higgins & Rholes, 1978, see Higgins, 1992, 1999 for a review). When the topic of communication is a social group, the establishment of biased shared views constitutes stereotype formation. Interpersonal communication processes are also central for the maintenance of existing stereotypes; once a stereotype is shared in a collective, stereotype consistent information tends to be communicated more often than stereotype inconsistent information (e.g., Lyons & Kashima, 2001, 2003; McIntyre, Lyons, Clark, & Kashima, 2004; see Kashima et al., 2007, for a review). Our understanding of stereotype development, however, remains incomplete; it is yet unclear how a biased representation formed in a dyad or a group spreads within a wider community to become a cultural stereotype. We posit that interpersonal communication may be a plausible mechanism through which biased representations are not only created but also transmitted to a wider community. In particular, communicators’ proclivity to selectively convey the information they believe will resonate with their audiences may underlie both stereotype formation and stereotype spread. The message constructed for the audiences need not reflect communicators’ own beliefs about the social target. Rather, the social and situational suitability of the message may facilitate its transmission to the first and subsequent audiences (cf. Clark & Kashima, 2007). The gist of the phenomenon in question can be illustrated by Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Everyone from the crowd watching the emperor’s parade eagerly agrees on how beautiful his new garment is—an example of how communicating obviously untrue information can be socially and situationally appropriate. If the creation of this biased but socially shared representation had not been disrupted, it is likely that it would have been transmitted to other residents of the empire who did not attend the parade. Retelling the event in the way it was spoken about (rather than observed) is likely to be deemed a more appropriate depiction for other members of the same community; conveying the biased depiction will not only inform those others about a new representation developed in the community (i.e., the quality of the Emperor’s outfit), but also help them maintain harmonious relationships with their fellow residents (by avoiding the confronting truth that the emperor wore no clothes at all). Unless challenged, repeatedly retelling the representation about emperor’s magnificent outfit may become a widely shared, cultural belief amongst the residents of the empire. Stereotypes about social groups may develop and spread in an analogous fashion. Suppose that driven by concerns about social appropriateness, a person constructs a biased representation about a group in a specific interaction episode with someone. If the interaction episode is successful, this person is likely to repeatedly communicate the biased representation to other audiences. Given the substantial amount of time people spend talking about their social environment (Foster, 2004), once these audiences have learnt the biased representation about the social group, they may further transmit it to still others. Thus, the biased representation may travel through the communicators’ social networks to a wider community (Lyons at el., 2008; Mason, Conrey, & Smith, 2007). If this biased representation about the group spreads to a large proportion of the community, it becomes a cultural stereotype. To put it differently, a cultural stereotype may arise out of “word of mouth” interpersonal communications and subsequent diffusion of biased representations through social networks.

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The aim of the present research was to simulate a stereotype spread via interpersonal communication by experimentally implementing a star-like social network structure, with a single communicator at the center of the star communicating to multiple audiences. This type of social network structures is likely to act as a “hub” of communication that can spread information to a large number of audiences (e.g., Valente, 1995). We were interested in examining the dynamics of information spread from the central position of this type of social networks. To do that, we used a modified version of Bartlett’s (1932) classic method of repeated reproduction. Bartlett had participants reproduce a stimulus material repeatedly for the experimenter; instead, we had participants reproduce a target group description repeatedly for multiple audiences. As a starting point of stereotype development, we experimentally induced the formation of a biased shared representation in communication to the first audience by using the saying-is-believing paradigm (Hausmann, Levine, & Higgins, 2008; Higgins & Rholes, 1978). Here, communicators are asked to describe a social target (person or group) for an ostensible audience who either likes or dislikes the target. Communicators are provided with ambiguous behavioural information about the target (e.g., “the target likes saving money” may be interpreted positively as thriftiness or negatively as stinginess; see Appendix). Communicators are informed that their audience’s task is to identify the target from an array based on their description. Under these circumstances, the communicators tend to produce a positively (negatively) biased description of the target in line with their audience’s positive (negative) attitude (e.g., Echterhoff, Higgins, & Levine, 2009; Higgins, 1992, 1999; for reviews). Furthermore, communicators end up believing the biased target description if they have established a sense of shared reality with their audience (e.g., Echterhoff, Higgins, & Groll, 2005; see Echterhoff et al., 2009 for a review). Hence, this phenomenon is called Saying-is-Believing. In the present research we then had the communicators reproduce the target description to a second and a third audience. Assuming that the first communication is biased due to the Saying-isBelieving phenomenon, if the communicators repeat what they have said before, the biased target description would spread. We call this repeated transmission of a previous communication with a different audience saying-is-repeating. To the extent that cultural stereotypes are representations of a social group shared in a community (Lyons & Kashima, 2001; 2003), a saying-is-repeating phenomenon may act as a mechanism through which a biased group representation formed in one communicative context spreads and multiplies to potentially become a cultural stereotype. To simulate the spread, we attempted to identify the circumstances under which Saying-isRepeating phenomena are likely to occur. We surmised that a second (a third, etc.) communication is likely to be biased to the extent that the context in which the first biased message was constructed can be generalized to the context in which the second message is to be constructed. Two potential features of communicative context may determine its generalizability. First is a shared group membership of communicators and their audiences. If the communicators shared a biased representation with a first audience who belongs to the same group (i.e., in-group), they are likely to repeat what they have said to a second audience who is also a member of the same in-group. This is because the first and second audiences are of the same category of audience, and therefore the communicative context with the first audience is likely seen to be generalizable to the communicative context with the second audience. The transmission of the biased message is especially likely if the second audience is ignorant about the target group. Lyons and Kashima (2003) found that stereotypic information was communicated to an in-group member who does not know about the stereotype. The communicators presumably aimed to inform others in the same community

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about the target group (Kashima et al., 2007). Furthermore, sharing information about an outgroup in the in-group can help affirm the in-group identity by defining and re-defining social boundaries (e.g., Pickett & Brewer, 2001). Indeed, previous research has shown that stereotypes are most likely to spread amongst members of the in-group (Klein et al., 2008; Kurz & Lyons, 2009). In addition, even if the second audience is not ignorant about the target group, a biased group description may be repeated if the communicators believe that the first audience’s attitude towards the target is likely to generalize to the second audience (i.e., the first and the second audiences are likely to have similar attitudes). Communicating information that is expected to resonate with the second audience’s attitudes is relationally beneficial (Clark & Kashima, 2007; Higgins, 1992); it conveys a message of similarity, liking, and agreeableness, and is likely to allow for a smooth and pleasant interaction. Thus, transmitting the biased group description to an audience who is likely to endorse it can help communicators form or affirm a social relationship with that audience. To test these predictions, we examined how communicators who have conveyed biased information about a social group to a first audience would describe that group for different types of subsequent audiences: a new member of the in-group who was unacquainted with the target (hereafter ‘newcomer’), and an audience who has been an in-group member for some time and is acquainted with the target group, but whose attitude is unknown (hereafter ‘old-timer’). It is expected that the biased description will be invariably communicated to the newcomer ignorant about the target group. However, when the second audience is an old-timer whose attitude is unknown, communicators are expected to engage in inferential processes prior to message construction (e.g., Kashima et al., 2007; Lerner & Tetlock, 1999) and communicate the bias only if they believe it is likely that the old-timer endorses it. Constructing a message congruent with the view of the audience can help forming a social relationship (Clark & Kashima, 2007), or at the very least avoiding potential objections from the audience (Moreno & Bodenhausen, 1999).We examine these possibilities in three studies.

STUDY 1 The main goal of this study was to provide a first demonstration of a saying-is-repeating phenomenon; that is, to examine whether the evaluative tone from the first message will be repeated to a second audience who is a newcomer. We also explored whether the potential saying-isrepeating effect would depend on the establishment of shared reality with the first audience, just like the saying-is-believing effect (e.g., Echterhoff et al., 2005). If transmitting the biased target description to subsequent audiences depends on communicators believing in the bias, then a saying-is-repeating effect should occur only for those communicators who felt a sense of shared reality with their first audience because it is only for them that the biased description is a valid and reliable representation of the target (cf. Echterhoff et al., 2005; Hardin & Higgins, 1996). To strengthen communicators’ motivation to establish a shared reality with their first audience, the study employed manipulation of relational and epistemic motives—the theorized precursors of the shared reality experience (see Hardin & Higgins, 1996). If, however, the bias transmission occurs for reasons other than shared reality, including socio-communicative goals, such as socializing a newcomer, then the saying-is-repeating should occur independently of shared reality establishment.

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METHOD Participants and Design

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Forty-eight students (33 females, Mage = 20.38, SD = 2.89) from an Australian University participated in this experiment in exchange of either 10 AUD or course credit. The design was 2 (first audience’s attitude: positive vs. negative) × 2 (epistemic and relational motives: high vs. low) factorial. The manipulation of motive had no effect on any variables, and is therefore not discussed in the analyses.1 Materials and Procedure The study included two communication tasks separated by completion of some questionnaires. The first communication task was borrowed from the saying-is-believing paradigm; in it participants were asked to describe a target for an ostensible audience, whose task was to identify the target from an array. Then participants completed a filler questionnaire, a shared reality scale, and a second communication task in which they described the same target for a different audience, unacquainted with the target. Below we outline in greater detail the cover story, the instructions to participants, and the materials used. The study was introduced as a project on social communication, conducted in collaboration with the organizers of a puzzle solving competition held on campus. Participants were told that contestants in the competition were observed and interviewed, and behavioral descriptions were written about some of them. These descriptions formed the test materials to be used for the purposes of the identification task. Participants were told they were going to read a description of a team called “Vision” from another large university (i.e., an out-group). Their task was to describe the Vision team to another student without mentioning their name. Their first audience, Alex, was presented as a student from the same university as themselves (i.e., an in-group member). Alex’s task was to identify from a list of 30 groups which group the participants meant to describe. After the instructions, the experimenter said in a casual, off-hand manner: “By the way, our observations show that Alex kind of likes/dislikes the members of the Vision team.” Then participants read the text about the Vision team. The information about this group was patterned after characteristics used to describe individual targets in previous SIB studies (e.g., Echterhoff et al., 2005; Higgins & Rholes, 1978). Six ambiguous characteristics used in previous research were adapted (see Appendix A; e.g., Echterhoff et al., 2005). Upon finishing the message for their first audience, the experimenter handed out a questionnaire which included a filler questionnaire and the shared reality scale. The shared reality scale consisted of 12 items examining the degree to which participants felt they shared a common view of the target group with their audience (see Appendix B). Ratings were made on a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). A factor analysis showed that all 12 items loaded on one factor, and the reliability was very high (α = .92). The items were averaged to index shared reality. Completing the filler questionnaire and the shared reality scale took approximately 35 minutes. The participants were then asked to describe the target group for a second audience, Chris. Chris was presented as a student from the same university as the participants (i.e., an in-group member) who did not know anyone from the puzzle solving competition (i.e., a newcomer). The

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participants were instructed to describe the Vision team for Chris so as to allow him to form a complete and accurate impression of the team’s members. Finally, after completing manipulation check items and demographics, the participants were thanked and debriefed.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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Preliminary Analyses All participants correctly recalled that the audiences were from the same university as themselves (i.e., in-group members) and the Vision team was from a different university (i.e., out-group members), so the data from all participants were retained for the analyses. Two coders blind to the condition broke down each message protocol into segments corresponding to the passages in the original description, and rated each segment on an 11-point bipolar scale, ranging from –5 (extremely negative) to +5 (extremely positive); as in Echterhoff et al., 2005). Both the valance and the degree to which each protocol was biased were taken into consideration. For example, a use of adjectives (e.g., thrifty or stingy; see Appendix) to describe the Vision team indicated an evaluative disambiguation of their behaviours—positive or negative. However, these adjectives (or close synonyms) were often accompanied by different qualifiers (e.g., a bit stingy, truly adventurous), which influenced the degree of their positivity or negativity. Thus, coders took into consideration the linguistic context when rating the evaluative tone of the passages. The scores ascribed to all segments were then averaged to calculate each coder’s mean rating for each protocol. The two coders’ ratings correlated highly (r (46) = .83 for first message, and r (46) = .83 for second message, ps < .001), so they were averaged to index message valence. A pre-condition for a Saying-is-Repeating effect was that communicators tuned their first message in line with their first audience’s attitude. This was clearly the case: participants produced more positive messages for an audience with a positive attitude (M = 0.44, SD = 1.20) than for an audience with a negative attitude (M = –1.01, SD = 1.17), F (2,45) = 17.68, p < .001 (one-tailed), ηp 2 = .28. A similar tendency was also obtained in communication to the second audience (M = 0.24, SD = 1.22 in positive and M = –0.31, SD = 1.38 in negative attitude condition), although the difference did not reach significance, F (2,45) = 2.07, p = .079 (one-tailed), ηp 2 = .04. Due to the directionality of the hypothesis the audience’s attitude effect on the valance of the messages produced for all audiences was examined with one-tailed significance test in all three studies of the research. Saying Is Repeating: Does the First Message Carry Over to the Second Message? By saying-is-repeating we mean a biased representation arising from a first communication is repeated in a second communication. To establish this, then, it is necessary to show that the second message is predicted by the first message and not simply by participants’ awareness of the first audience’s attitude towards the target. For this purpose, we conducted a mediation analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) in which attitude was included as the IV, second message as the DV, and first message as the mediator. A significant mediation by first message would mean that it is the act of producing a biased target representation that underpins its subsequent spread. It should be noted that contemporary approaches to mediation analysis do not require a significant effect of the IV on the DV, and instead focus on assessing the significance of the indirect

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.53***

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First audience’s attitude (0 = negative; 1 = positive)

First message (Alex) –.18, p = .183 [.21, p = .158]

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.74*** Second message (Chris)

FIGURE 1 Mediation analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) for Study 1 with audience’s attitude as the IV, first message as the mediator, and second message as the DV. The variables in this analysis are the bipolar measures of messages valence. Path coefficients are the standardized β-coefficients. The numbers in parentheses represent the direct effect (i.e. the c path) of the audience’s attitude prior to inclusion of first message. ∗∗∗ p < .001.

effect specified by model (Hayes, 2009; Rucker, Preacher, Tormala, & Petty, 2011). To conduct a formal significance test of indirect effect we relied on the default bias corrected and accelerated bootstrapping procedure implemented in Preacher and Hayes’s (2004) macro, whereby a path is deemed significant if the 95% confidence intervals of the estimated indirect effects (based on 10,000 samples) do not include zero. This analysis revealed that the indirect path from the audience’s attitude through first message to the second message was significant, 95% CIs (0.49, 1.75). The results are summarized in Figure 1. This finding supports the hypothesis that people tend to repeat what they have said before to a subsequent in-group audience ignorant about the target’s characteristics. It provides a first demonstration for the hypothesized saying-is-repeating effect. Next, we examined whether shared reality moderated the saying-is-repeating effect. For this purpose the valence of each message was transformed into a unipolar measure of message bias by obtaining their absolute values (cf. Kopietz, Hellmann, & Higgins, 2010). In this unipolar measure, a higher value denotes a greater degree of evaluative bias, regardless of its original valence. In other words, the unipolar measure removes the need to include audience’s attitude because its two levels (i.e., positive and negative attitude) are collapsed across and treated as replications of each other. This data analytic strategy increases the power to detect a moderating effect of shared reality. If we used the bipolar measure, the effect of shared reality becomes a three-way interaction effect of audience, first message bias, and shared reality. By using the unipolar measure, the moderation test only requires a two-way interaction between first message bias and shared reality. Given that there are myriad difficulties in the detection of higher order interaction effects (see Aiken & West, 1991; Busemeyer & Jones, 1983; McClelland & Judd, 1993), it seems sensible to increase the chance of detecting this effect if there is any. After centering first message bias and shared reality scores around their respective means, these measures, along with their interaction term, were included as predictors of second message bias in a multiple regression (cf. Aiken & West, 1991). The overall model was highly significant, F (4,43) = 7.55, p < .001, R2 = .41, and the first message bias significantly predicted second message bias (β = .64, t (43) = 5.29, p < .001) showing again a saying-is-repeating phenomenon. However, the effect of shared reality (β = .03, t (43) = .20, p = .84) and the interaction term (β = .04, t (43) = .29, p = .78) were not significant, suggesting that the saying-is-repeating effect was not predicted nor moderated by shared reality. Finally, to examine whether communication about the target group becomes more or less biased over time and repetition, we used a paired samples t-test to compare the degree of bias in the messages to the first and the second audiences (unipolar measure). This analysis revealed

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no significant difference between the first (M = 1.08, SD = .89) and the second message (M = .96, SD = .89), t (47) = 1.24, p = .22, suggesting that when constructing their second messages communicators relied on their first message in both degree of bias and valence (as also shown by the mediation analysis above). Saying does seem to beget repeating. Biased group representations created in an initial dyadic communication with one’s in-group member were further transmitted to a subsequent in-group audience who was unacquainted with the target. The bias transmission was unaffected by the experience of shared reality in the first dyad. These findings suggest that the saying-is-repeating effect may be seen as an act of generalizing what was considered to be a shared representation among in-group members to a newcomer as an attempt to inform and socialize him into the in-group, and affirm his in-group identity (Kashima et al., 2007; Lyons & Kashima, 2003).

STUDY 2 Study 2 had two main objectives: (a) to provide additional evidence for a saying-is-repeating phenomenon; and (b) to show that saying-is-repeating is different from saying-is-believing. To this end, we included a recall task after the first and before the second communication task, and sought to establish that a saying-is-believing effect obtains with regard to recall (e.g., Echterhoff et al., 2005), but that first message and recall have different effects on the second message.

METHOD Participants and Procedure Participants were 73 students (51 female, Mage = 20.45, SD = 3.39) from an Australian University, receiving either 10AUD or course credit. The design was 2 (first audience’s attitude: positive vs. negative) × 2 (epistemic and relational motives: high vs. low) factorial. However, as in Study 1 the manipulation of motive had no significant effect on any variables. Although it is not discussed, its effect is controlled for in all of the analyses, as reflected in the degrees of freedom.1 The procedure was very similar to Study 1, except that we administered a recall task after the filler questionnaire and the shared reality scale (α = .91); participants were instructed to recall the original Vision team description verbatim. This was followed by a second filler task (approx. 7 min), after which participants were asked to write a message for the newcomer audience, Chris, as in Study 1.

RESULTS Preliminary Analyses All participants correctly recalled that the audiences were from the same university as themselves and the Vision team was from a different university.

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We used the same coding procedure as in Study 1, both for messages and recall protocols. The correlations between the two coders’ ratings were sufficiently high (r (71) = .76 for the first message, r (71) = .89 for the second message, and r (71) = .70 for recall, ps < .001), so they were averaged to form the measures of messages and recall valance. As in Study 1, the audience tuning effect was present: participants produced more positive messages (M = 0.67, SD = 1.21) when the audience’s attitude was positive than when it was negative (M = –0.65, SD = 1.34), F (2, 70) = 19.43, p < .001 (one-tailed), ηp 2 = .22. The audience’s attitude effect on recall followed the same tendency (M = 0.26, SD = 0.68 in the positive and M = –0.07, SD = 0.81 in negative attitude condition), however, it only reached marginal significance, F (2, 70) = 3.22, p = .039 (one-tailed), ηp 2 = .05. The same was true for communication to the second audience: participants produced more positive messages (M = 0.51, SD = 1.49) in the positive than in the negative attitude condition (M = –0.02, SD = 1.27), however the difference did not reach standard levels of significance, F (2,70) = 2.74, p = .051 (one-tailed), ηp 2 = .04. Saying Is Believing: First Message Effect on Recall First of all, evidence was found for the classical saying-is-believing effect. The results from a mediation analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) and a bootstrap procedure (as in Study 1) showed that the first message mediated the effect of audience attitude on recall (see Figure 2). In particular, the first audience’s attitude predicted the valence of the first message; the first message predicted recall; and the indirect effect of audience’s attitude on recall was significant, 95% CIs (0.07, 0.56). Next, in order to examine whether shared reality strengthens the saying-is-believing effect, we tested whether shared reality moderated the effect of the first message on recall. In this analysis, we used a unipolar measure of bias, as in Study 1, for the first message and recall, and included the main effects of the centered first message bias and shared reality as well as their interaction in a hierarchical multiple regression analysis (Aiken & West, 1991). The results revealed a significant

First message (Alex)

First audience’s attitude (0 = negative; 1 = positive)

.42** Recall

.42*** .01, p = .94 [.21, p = .077]

.01, p = .94 .43** –.01, p = .94 [.19, p = .102]

Second message (Chris)

FIGURE 2 Mediation analyses for Study 2. To test for a Saying-is-Believing effect, a mediation analysis was performed (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) with audience’s attitude as the IV, first message as the mediator, and recall as the DV. To test for a Saying-is-Repeating effect, a mediation analysis with 2 mediators operating in serial was performed (cf. Hayes, 2012; model 6). Audience attitude was the IV, first message and recall were included as mediators, and second message was the DV. The variables in this analysis are the bipolar measures of messages and recall valence. Path coefficients are the standardized β-coefficients. The numbers in parentheses represent the direct effect (i.e. the c path) of audience’s attitude prior to inclusion of mediator(-s). †p < .10. ∗∗ p < .01.∗∗∗ p < .001.

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FIGURE 3 Regression slopes for communicators scoring high and low on shared reality in Study 2. Both shared reality and first message are plotted one standard deviation below and above their respective means.

overall model, F (4, 68) = 4.75, p = .002, R2 = .22. The main effect of first message bias was significant (β = .34, t (68) = 2.96, p = .004), however, it was qualified by an interaction with shared reality (β = .24, t (68) = 2.19, p = .032); the main effect of shared reality was nonsignificant (β = .09, p = .42). Simple slopes analyses revealed that recall bias was predicted by first message bias only for communicators who established a shared reality, B = .31, t (71) = 4.18, p < .001, but not for those who did not, B = .01, t (71) = .31, p = .68 (see Figure 3; Aiken & West, 1991). Saying Is Repeating: Does the Effect of the First Message Carry Over to the Second Message After Recall? To test whether the effect of the first audience’s attitude on second message was mediated by first message, by recall, or by the sequence of both first message and recall, we used Hayes’s (2012; model 6) multiple mediator model with mediators operating in serial. This model allowed us to take into account the sequence in which the tasks are completed and to test for an indirect path that accounts for any carry over effects from the first message to recall. Through this model we tested the indirect path from audience attitude as the IV to second message as the DV via first message as mediator 1 and recall as mediator 2, as well as the indirect paths through each of the proposed mediators separately. The analysis was performed with the corresponding macro and revealed a significant overall model fit, F (4,68) = 4.33, p = .004, R2 = .20. The results from a bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap procedure with resampling number set of 10 000 further revealed that the only significant indirect path was through the first message, 95% CIs (0.08, 1.26). The paths through the sequence of first message and recall, 95% CIs (–0.15, 0.18), and through recall only, 95% CIs (–0.08; 0.08), were non-significant (see Figure 2). This finding demonstrates that it is the first biased message, and not communicators’ recollections of the target description, that influenced communication to the second audience.

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We also examined whether shared reality qualified the effect of the first message bias on the second message bias. After controlling for the effect of motive in step 1, in step 2 of a hierarchical multiple regression we included the main effects of the centered first message bias, recall bias, and shared reality; in a third step we included a two-way interaction of first message bias and shared reality. An alternative model with a two-way interaction of recall bias and shared reality as a third step was also tested to examine whether shared reality qualified the effect of recall on second message bias. Neither interaction effects were significant (β = –.13 for message and −.01 for recall, ps > .20). However, both first message (β = .54, t (68) = 4.36, p < .001) and recall (β = –.26, t (68) = –2.21, p = .030) biases predicted second message bias, with a negative recall effect. The main effect of shared reality was also negative (β = –.18, t (68) = –1.64, p = .106), although it did not reach significance. The overall model including the three main effects was significant, F (4,68) = 5.41, p = .001, R2 = .24. As in Study 1, the current findings suggest that the transmission of a biased message to a second audience does not depend on the establishment of a shared reality.

DISCUSSION A saying-is-repeating effect was replicated. Communicators relied on their biased first message when constructing a message for a second, newcomer, audience. Furthermore, the sayingis-repeating phenomenon appears to be different from the saying-is-believing phenomenon. Although we found a classical saying-is-believing phenomenon in recall, recall did not predict the evaluative tone of the second message; only the evaluative tone of the first message did. In addition, recall and second message showed different patterns of relationships with first message and shared reality. The effect of the first message on recall was moderated by shared reality, conceptually replicating Echterhoff and colleagues’ study (2005) finding that a saying-is-believing effect occurs only when the communicator establishes a sense of shared reality with the audience. However, shared reality did not moderate the effect of the first message on the second message. Although Study 2 provided further evidence for a saying-is-repeating phenomenon, communication to a newcomer audience may present an especially potent situation in which communicators repeat what they have said before. This is a situation in which the communicators are in a position to “teach” the ignorant newcomer about the views shared among in-group members without any possibility that the audience may question or challenge them. Under these circumstances socialization concerns may be particularly pronounced (Levine & Moreland, 1991, 1999), and may override other prominent communication goals such as being accurate and truthful (e.g., Lyons & Kashima, 2003; Tversky & Marsh, 2004). What if a subsequent audience was an old-timer, who is acquainted with and potentially knowledgeable about the target out-group, but whose attitude towards the target group was unknown? Study 3 addressed this question.

STUDY 3 To explore the saying-is-repeating effect further, in this study we used a communication task involving an old-timer audience who is acquainted with the target group, but whose attitude towards them remained unknown. Unlike a newcomer audience, such an audience is in a position

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to judge the validity of the communicators’ target description, and thus pose communicators with the task to construct a message that is likely to be accepted. Constructing a message that is likely to suit the old-timer’s attitude towards the target should help the communicators establish a relationship with that audience (Clark & Kashima, 2007), or at least to avoid potential objections (e.g., Lerner & Tetlock, 1999; Moreno & Bodenhausen, 1999). In the absence of information about the old-timer’s attitude towards the target group, it is perceived consensus or generality within the in-group of the first audience’s attitude that can provide a basis for inferring their second audience’s attitude (Clark & Kashima, 2007; Lyons & Kashima, 2003). In other words, if the communicators believe that the first audience’s attitude toward the target group is generalizable to most other in-group members, then they are likely to repeat what they have said before. That is, a biased group description should (should not) be transmitted to the second old-timer audience if a high (vs. low) level of in-group consensus is perceived. Furthermore, an audience who is acquainted with the target group is in a position to verify or question the validity of the biased description by providing feedback. Echterhoff et al. (2005, Study 1 and 3) demonstrated that success feedback indicating that the audience could successfully identify the target on the referential communication task strengthens communicators’ belief in the biased description, while failure feedback eliminates the bias in recall. If applied to the spread of stereotypic representations, receiving a success feedback may encourage communicators to transmit it to subsequent audiences. A failure feedback, on the other hand, may preclude the transmission of biased messages to others. To test these possibilities, we asked participants to communicate to a newcomer after they received feedback from the second audience.

METHOD Participants and Design Participants were 71 undergraduate students (50 females; Mage = 19.65, SD = 2.31) from an Australian university. They received either 10AUD or course credit for participation. The design was 2 (first audience’s attitude: positive vs. negative) × 2 (feedback from the second old-timer audience: success vs. failure) factorial. Procedure The procedure was based on the previous studies with the following modifications. After finishing their message for the first audience, Alex, the participant was asked to complete some filler tasks, the shared reality scale (α = .88), and a one-item measure of perceived consensus (consenus1): “I believe it is very likely that Alex’s attitude towards the Vision team is widely shared among the other contestants from my university (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree).” Then, the experimenter asked the participants to describe the target group for a second audience, John, on the pretext that she needed to collect more data. All participants agreed. John was presented as another student volunteer from the same university as Alex and the participants (i.e. an in-group member) who also participated in the puzzle solving competition. John’s attitude towards the Vision team was not mentioned. If a participant asked what his attitude was, they were told that the experimenter had no information about it.

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The experimenter stepped outside the experimental room ostensibly to collect other materials, and returned to the experimental room quickly. When participants completed their message to John, the experimenter told the participant that she had just bumped into John, and he had agreed to read their message straight away and try to identify which the target group was. Then the experimenter handed out filler tasks and left the room to ostensibly give their message to John. Approximately 7 minutes later, the experimenter returned to the testing room, and told participants that John had either correctly identified the described group (success feedback) or could not think of a team that matched the description (failure feedback). All participants were then asked to again estimate the extent to which Alex’s attitude was consensually held in their in-group (consensus2): “To what extent do you believe the other contestants from your university would have the same attitude towards the Vision team as Alex does? (1 = not at all, 7 = very much).” Then 39 of the participants2 were asked to describe the Vision team for a third, newcomer, audience, Chris. After completing manipulation checks and demographic questions, participants were thanked and debriefed.

RESULTS Preliminary Analyses All participants correctly remembered their audiences’ universities (i.e., group membership), as well as the university of the Vision team members. The same coding procedure was used to index the messages valence. The two coders’ ratings were highly correlated (r (69) = .85 for first message, r (69) = .83 for second message, and r (37) = .88 for third message), and therefore averaged for further analyses. The feedback from the second audience did not have a significant effect on consensus2, or on the third communication (ps > .30). This lack of effect may be due to the perception that the feedback reflected John’s personal view only, and not the view prevalent in the group. It is also possible that the success of the first communication has a decisive effect on communicators’ view about the target as it is the first audience who provides an initial social verification of the biased target description (Echterhoff et al., 2009 for a review). In the absence of an explicit failure feedback from their (first) audience participants tend to assume that their communication has been successful (Echterhoff et al., 2005). Thus, communicators in the present study may have built a confident view about the target group based on their successful communication with the first audience, and were more resistant to take on board the feedback from the second audience. These possibilities await future examination. Because the effect of the feedback in the current study was non-significant, it is not discussed further. As in Studies 1 and 2, the audience tuning effect on communication to the first audience was obtained: more positive messages were produced for an audience with a positive (M = 0.46, SD = 0.96) than for an audience with a negative attitude (M = –0.27, SD = 0.92), t (69) = 3.27, p = .001 (one-tailed), Cohen’s d = 0.78. The effect of the audience’s attitude was also significant in communication to the second audience (John): participants in the positive attitude condition (M = 0.31, SD = 0.93) produced more positive messages than participants in the negative attitude condition (M = –0.47, SD = 1.21), t (69) = 3.01, p = .002 (one-tailed), Cohen’s d = 0.72. In the third message the same tendency was found (M = 0.25, SD = 1.00 for the positive, and

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M = −0.15, SD = 1.08 for the negative attitude condition), although the result did not reach significance, t (37) = 1.19, p = .12 (one-tailed), Cohen’s d = 0.38.

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Saying Is Repeating: The Effect of the First Message on the Second Message, and the Effect of the First and Second Messages on the Third Message Saying-is-repeating effects obtained for both the second, old-timer, and the third, newcomer, audiences (see Figure 4). The first message mediated the effect of the first audience’s attitude on the second message, 95% CIs (0.22, 0.94) (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Utilizing a multiple mediator model with mediators operating in serial (Hayes, 2012; model 6), both the first and second messages were included as mediators of the third message. Significant indirect effects were obtained through the first message, 95% CIs (0.05, 0.83), and through the first and second messages, 95% CIs (0.01, 0.40). The path through the second message as the sole mediator was non-significant 95% CIs (–0.04; 0.42). The significant mediation by the first message confirms that the production of an audience tuned message serves a starting point for the spread of biased target description to both newcomer and old-timer audiences. The obtained dual mediation by the first and second messages offers further support for the saying-is-repeating effect as a mechanism for the spread of stereotypes: communicators’ message to a third audience was influenced by what they have said to their previous audiences. Moderation by perceived consensus. We hypothesized that before transmitting the bias to an old-timer audience, communicators would try to infer this audience’s likely endorsement of the biased group representation by estimating group-level consensus. To test this hypothesis we examined whether the bias transmission to the second audience was moderated by perceived group-level consensus. In a multiple regression the centered first message bias, consensus1, and their interaction were included as predictors of second message bias. In an overall significant model, F(3,67) = 10.62, p < .001, R2 = .32, the interaction effect was significant, β = .27, t (67) = 2.66, p = .01, and so was the main effect of first message, β = .49, t (67) = 4.84,

.37**

First message (Alex)

.63***

.11, p = .26 [.34**] First audience’s attitude

Second message (John)

.41**

.43** –.10, p = .49 [.20, p = .24]

Third message (Chris)

FIGURE 4 Summary of mediation analyses for Study 3. To test for a Saying-is-Repeating to the second audience (John), a mediation analysis was performed (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) with audience’s attitude as the IV, first message as the mediator, and second as the DV. To test for a Saying-is-Repeating to the third audience (Chris), a mediation analysis with 2 mediators operating in serial was performed (cf. Hayes, 2012; model 6). Audience attitude was the IV, first and second messages were included as mediators, and third message was the DV. The variables in this analysis are the bipolar measures of messages valence. Path coefficients are the standardized β-coefficients. The numbers in parentheses represent the direct effect (i.e. the c path) of audience’s attitude prior to inclusion of mediator(-s). ∗∗ p < .01.∗∗∗ p < .001.

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FIGURE 5 Regression slopes for communicators scoring high and low on perceived consensus in Study 3. Both consensus1 and first message are plotted one standard deviation below and above their respective means.

p < .001; the main effect of consensus was not, β = .15, t (67) = 1.45, p = .152. Simple slopes analyses revealed that the bias in the second message was associated with the first message bias only for those who perceived a high group-level consensus, B = .75, t (69) = 4.55, p = .001, but not for those who perceived a low group level consensus, B = .18, t (69) = 1.34, p = .295 (see Figure 5). These findings suggest that communicators tended to repeat their first message to an old-timer audience especially when they believed the first audience’s attitude was generalizable to the in-group as a whole. We also tested whether the saying-is-repeating effect to the third newcomer audience was moderated by consensus1, shared reality, or consensus2. Both interpersonally based shared reality and group-level consensus are sources of social verification (e.g., Bar-Tal, 2000; Hardin & Higgins, 1996), and have been shown to influence communicators’ own beliefs and attitudes towards the topic of communication (Echterhoff et al., 2005; Lyons & Kashima, 2003). However, consistent with the findings from the previous studies, the interaction effects testing for moderation by group-level consensus or shared reality, both through the message to Alex and message to John paths, were non-significant (ts < 1.6, ps > .13). It appears that people need not believe in the biased information to repeat it in communication to a newcomer audience.

DISCUSSION This study demonstrated that the saying-is-repeating effect depends on perceived generalizability of the first audience’s attitude to the in-group as a whole when the second audience is an oldtimer; when the audience is a newcomer, however, the saying-is-repeating phenomenon occurs regardless. In this study, participants were told to communicate about a target out-group to an old-timer audience with an unknown attitude as well as to an ignorant newcomer. As predicted, perceived consensus moderated a saying-is-repeating effect to the old-timer audience. Nonetheless, a saying-is-repeating phenomenon occurred to an ignorant newcomer audience regardless of perceived consensus, suggesting that communicators tend to repeat their messages when there is an information differential; that is, the communicator is in the know, but the audience is ignorant. Communicators repeated to a third audience what they have said to two previous audiences.

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GENERAL DISCUSSION The overarching aim of the present research was to enhance our understanding on how cultural representations, such as stereotypes, emerge through interpersonal communication. Drawing on past research on stereotype communication we identified two key phases of stereotype development: formation and maintenance. We attempted to bridge the gap between these phases and simulate the middle phase of stereotype diffusion via interpersonal communication by experimentally constructing a star-like social network in which a single communicator at the center of the star communicated to multiple in-group audiences. An initial stereotype was formed through audience tuning in a dyadic communication to a first audience; stereotype spread was simulated by having the communicator describe the target out-group to two types of subsequent audiences: a newcomer, ignorant about the target group, and an old-timer with unknown attitude. While the stereotype was invariably transmitted to the newcomer, perceived group-level consensus moderated its transmission to the old-timer. In other words, the present research found evidence that communicators exhibit a sayingis-repeating proclivity when they engage in serial interactions on the same topic; communicators tended to reproduce a biased communicative act that they performed in one context, if that context can be readily generalized to subsequent communicative contexts (i.e., in-group members who are ignorant or who are likely to share the same view as the prior audience). As such, just like the well-established proclivity for communication of stereotype consistent over stereotype inconsistent information acts as a mechanism underlying the maintenance of existing stereotypes (see Kashima et al., 2007, for a review), the saying-is-repeating phenomenon can act as a mechanism underlying the diffusion of new stereotypic representations. Clearly, in the absence of an existing stereotype a distinction between stereotype consistent and stereotype inconsistent information about a target group is impossible. Nevertheless, just like communicating stereotype consistent information when stereotypes are extant can be socially connective (Clark & Kashima, 2007), repeating biased communicative acts may be socially beneficial: it can help socialize new members of the group; it can also help communicators affiliate with their old-timer in-group members if the biased message resonates with the views endorsed within the in-group. Yet, the saying-is-repeating proclivity has an important downside: as shown in all three studies, it can result in the spread of stereotypes with no factual basis (note that a stereotype emerged in the first communication purely as a function of perceived attitudes of the audience). It is conceivable that the audiences would also transmit the stereotypic representation further to members of their own network. Because the audiences may have only received a biased target description secondhand and lacked firsthand experience with them, the process of transmission is likely to not only spread the bias, but also to further polarize it (Kashima, 2000; Lyons & Kashima, 2001; Thompson, Judd, & Park, 2000). It is also important to note that although the experience of shared reality with a first audience helped consolidate the communicators’ recall memory in line with their communications, communicators’ own memory did not play a significant role in their subsequent communication of the stereotype to a newcomer (Study 2). It seems that people engage in the spread of stereotypes for which they do not necessarily have a factual or intersubjectively verified memory. Furthermore, in all three studies shared reality did not moderate the saying-is-repeating effect suggesting that communicators need not believe in the bias to transmit it to others. The weak interpersonal ties between the communicators and their audiences in the current studies may have

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been responsible for this finding (Lyons et al., 2008). In the current research, the communicator– audience ties were solely based on a common group membership. Such weak interpersonal ties tend to facilitate the communication of information that has the potential to define and affirm the community (Clark & Kashima, 2007; Kashima, Bratanova, & Peters, 2012). Expressing views that differ from those believed to be shared within the community could have been socially disruptive (especially in communication to the old-timer) and would not have accomplished the affiliative socio-communicative goals. Whereas the pursuit of socio-communicative goals may increase the likelihood of entering a whirlpool of stereotype circulation within an in-group, there are factors that may mitigate this process. First of all, the biased target group description is unlikely to be communicated to out-group members (Kurz & Lyons, 2009). Furthermore, if the communicator has a close interpersonal relationship with an audience, they are likely to express their privately endorsed views, which may or may not be collectively endorsed in the in-group (Ruscher et al., 2003). In addition, audiences may disagree with biased communications, and this may also impede or change the course of the stereotype development. These social psychological processes await further investigation. The scenario presented in the current research provided a first demonstration of how stereotypic representations with no factual basis may emerge from interpersonal communication and spread through communicators’ social networks to potentially become cultural stereotypes.

NOTES 1. The manipulation of epistemic and relational motive was included in both Studies 1 and 2. Its main effect and interaction with audience attitude were examined using the data from Study 1, from Study 2, as well as the combined dataset from both studies (N = 121). However, neither the main effect of motive nor its interaction with attitude reached statistical significance (ps > .17) on any of the possible dependent variables (first and second message, recall, shared reality). The main effect of motive is controlled for in all analyses reported in Studies 1 and 2, however, it is not discussed as it was non-significant. 2. The rest of the participants in the study took part in a recall task which examined the effect of both the first and second messages on communicators’ memory of the target. However, to streamline the outline of the research and to maintain a focus on stereotype spread we only present the third task involving communication to a newcomer.

AUTHOR NOTES Boyka Bratanova is affiliated with the School of Psychological Sciences at The University of Melbourne. Yoshi Kashima is affiliated with the School of Psychological Sciences at The University of Melbourne.

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Received July 20, 2013 Accepted December 8, 2013

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THE JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

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APPENDIX A: TARGET GROUP DESCRIPTION The members of the “Vision” team have their own standards of behaving. As students they would tell on fellow classmates whom they saw break school rules, like cheating on tests. In fact, they claimed to their friends that never once in their life any of them thought about cheating. [moral vs. self-righteous] “Vision” members recently started making attempts to keep up to date cultural knowledge. They read books about Europe, sat in a music appreciation workshop, and eat in fashionable ethnic restaurants. When being with friends, they often talk at length about culture and art. [cultivated vs. artificial] The members of “Vision” spend a great amount of time in search of what they like to call excitement. They have already climbed Mt. McKinley, done some skydiving, shot Colorado rapids in a kayak, driven a demolition derby, and piloted a jet-powered boat—without knowing much about boats. They have been injured and even risked death, a number of times. [adventurous vs. reckless] Other than business engagements, the “Vision” members’ contacts with people are surprisingly limited. They feel they don’t really need to rely on anyone. [independent–aloof ] Once “Vision” members make up their mind to do something it is as good as done no matter how long it might take or how difficult the going might be. Only rarely do they change their mind even when it might be better if they did. In order to improve their life the members of “Vision” try to save money. They use coupons, buy things on sale, and avoid donating money to charity or lending money to friends. [thrifty vs. stingy]

APPENDIX B: SHARED REALITY SCALE

1. I think that if I were in Alex’s position, I would have very similar impressions about the students from the “Vision” team. 2. Alex and I have quite different attitude towards the members of the “Vision” team. (r) 3. I feel I am on the “same wave length” as Alex. 4. I have a feeling Alex and I would get on well with each other about a number of things in life. 5. I feel I can rely on Alex’s judgments about other people. 6. Alex seems to have a very different perspective on things. (r) 7. I can see why Alex would think the way he does. 8. I believe Alex would have good reasons for his impressions. 9. I think that Alex has a very different take on this issue. (r) 10. I think that Alex would be correct in most of his opinions. 11. I like the way that Alex thinks about things. 12. I think that Alex’s impression is based on careful thought.

The "saying is repeating" effect: dyadic communication can generate cultural stereotypes.

It has been long established that interpersonal communication underpins the existence of cultural stereotypes. However, research has either examined t...
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